[maxerickson]

Not really. It's often "convenient" relative to all the places that aren't open, and they won't turn you away until they've assessed your situation.

What's wild is that we structure payment and regulatory models where a walk in at the ER costs more than a walk in at the urgent care located literally next door. Gotta self assess how serious the situation is if you don't wanna contribute to the high risk revenue pool.

[wahern]

The urgent care clinic can assess you. In fact, they could probably assess you over the phone before you even arrive.

Kaiser heavily pushes their nurse hotline to help minimize costs. I can hardly fathom going to either the Kaiser emergency or injury departments[1] without calling the nurse hotline. The nurse, in consultation with a staff physician in the call center, does an assessment, tells you what to do next, if anything, and schedules any appointments--phone physician, in-person primary physician, or calls ahead to the emergency or injury clinic to minimize wait times.

Our current healthcare system is so fractured that most people have no idea how to go about seeking healthcare in the most convenient and smoothest way possible. Smaller regional hospitals and even some regional systems don't have the scale to do what Kaiser does, at least not nearly as efficiently as Kaiser. High costs are baked into the system.

[1] Injury department is for broken bones, cuts, etc that happen during the day. At the SF Geary medical center they're conveniently located across the hall from the imaging department.

[recursive]

I am a current Kaiser subscriber. (member?/customer?) Even despite the simplicity for which Kaiser is clearly striving, I had a tough time figuring out how it was supposed to work at first.

I was accustomed to urgent care without a phone call. I tried to apply that experience to Kaiser. I found a Kaiser facility, via their web site, that claimed to offer urgent care during certain hours. I even double checked the definition of "urgent care" on wikipedia. I arrived at listed opening hour. The security guard I found there didn't know anything about it, except that no one else would show up for another hour. Then I wandered around trying to figure out where "urgent care" was, but there was some confusion about it. Eventually, I got to a desk somewhere. I was told to call for an appointment, which I did from there. All in all I spent three or four hours waiting and shuffling around between different desks. It was a very frustrating experience.

Eventually, I found out that everything in Kaiser starts with a phone call. But I don't think I was ever told that. What you're supposed to do, as far as I can tell now, is just call the number on your card any time you want to do anything.

[maxerickson]

Right, my point is, why isn't the nurse line also standing at the door to the single walk in access point for the hospital? Because we are wild fools, that's why.

The hospital is liable for the costs in the ER, so fuck no are they going to tell you go home and get some rest if they can charge you $2000 to do that after taking your insurance.

[remote_phone]

Except with something like Kaiser, they are the insurance provider and the hospital system. You only pay a copay for the ER, and that’s it. There’s no incentive to push unnecessary medical services.

[maxerickson]

I expect they are subject to EMTALA and won't triage down in the event an outside customers strolls in.